Aphrodite Myron steals $3.3m from Hisense to feed gambling addiction

A Roxburgh Park woman spent eight years ripping off her electronics giant employer to the tune of $3.3m, blowing all the loot on the punt.

Hisense headquarters in Knoxfield. Photo: Google Maps

A former employee of an electronics giant stole millions of dollars from her employer by doctoring consumer complaint claims and feeding money through bank accounts in her family’s name, blowing it all on the punt.

Aphrodite Myron, 58, fleeced home appliance company Hisense of more than $3.38m over eight years and hundreds of separate transactions to fuel a gambling addiction.

Myron was employed by the Knoxfield-based company as a customer service manager during the period of offending and was responsible for resolving customer issues which reached a consumer complaints body.

From 2014 to 2021, the Roxburgh Park woman would email Hisense’s finance director under the pretence a consumer complaint had been upheld by the body and claim that Hisense was required to pay compensation.

It did so, to 35 separate bank accounts set up in Myron’s, her husband’s, and her children’s names.

Over the eight years, Myron stole $3,383,56.96 by way of more than 1000 transactions.

She used the money exclusively to gamble.

The County Court heard on Friday that Myron intended to pay it all back in winnings.

Myron was said to have been dealing with a “perfect storm” of poor circumstances in which she “put her needs second” to her own detriment.

That included managing a difficult relationship with her spouse and taking care of her children and mother.

“She was completely submerged and under these pressures,” Myron’s defence lawyer Mihal Greener said.

“And then gambling was this opportunity that offered escape from the day”.

The court heard Myron was “awaiting a knock at the door” about the offending, and despite being remorseful, remained in some denial about it for her psychology’s sake.

Prosecutor Natasa Stevic submitted that the “dishonest acts were not anomalies”.

“There was a high number of them over a very long period of time,” she said.

Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis accepted Myron was a “hardworking, generous person” and “very family orientated”.

She acknowledged the “pernicious and exploitative” gambling industry which had its hooks in the offender.

“But we’re dealing here with a very significant amount of money over a substantial period of time in the context also of there being a breach of trust,” Judge Karapanagiotidis said.

Myron pleaded guilty to eight counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.

She was audibly emotional by the sixth charge read out during her arraignment; by the seventh she whispered her guilty plea.

Myron will be sentenced at a later date.